Spiritually and culturally sensitive evidence-based approaches to taking a spiritual history

Abstract

Given the demonstrated relationship between religion and spirituality (R/S) and mental health, clinicians are faced with the decision of how to integrate R/S into clinical care. The first, most basic step to inform this decision is to ascertain a spiritual history. A skillful spiritual history can help the clinician to understand not only the patient’s R/S and whether they would like R/S involved in his clinical care, but also key mental health information, aiding in diagnosis and treatment planning. Studies have shown that patients want clinicians to ask about R/S, and that taking a spiritual history can correlate with improved patient treatment adherence, trust, and well-being. While many mental health professionals consider patient R/S to be important, few discuss R/S with patients in practice, and few training programs include guidance on the spiritual history. This chapter includes practical tools and considerations to consider when taking a spiritual history in various clinical and cultural scenarios. Basic tenets of taking a spiritual history are reviewed, along with the details of a few published tools for taking the spiritual history. The chapter concludes with a discussion of nuances in the spiritual history and a summary of areas for future study.